Life Threatened, Spat On, TechCrunch's Arrington Takes Leave

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington plans to take a leave of absence at least through February after a man spat on him at a conference in Europe yesterday.

Announcing the news in a post titled "Some Things Need To Change," Michael also says that last summer he spent $2,000 a day on security after an "off balance individual threatened to kill me and my family."

"I can’t say my job is much fun any more," he writes. He goes on to explain his decision:

I write about technology startups and news. In any sane world that shouldn’t make me someone who has to deal with death threats and being spat on. It shouldn’t require me to absorb more verbal abuse than a human being can realistically deal with.

The problem is that I love what I do when I’m not hiding from some crazy fucker who wants to kill me or being spat on by some unhappy European entrepreneur we didn’t write about.

I’ve decided the right thing to do is take some time off and get a better perspective on what I’m spending my life doing. I’ll be taking most of February off from writing, and decide what the best future for me is while sitting on a beach somewhere far away from my iPhone and laptop. I’ll be continuing to write this week and cover news from the World Economic Forum in Davos, then I’ll take time off starting next week.